Advertisement
Published: September 4th 2008
Edit Blog Post
We checked out of Club Raro after sorting out lots of problems with the hotel overcharging us. Lukcily our transfer turned up on time and took us to the airport in plenty of time for the flight.
At check in our beloved factor 50 sunblock was confiscated as we weren’t allowed liquids in our hand luggage. We hadn’t realised they weren’t allowed on this flight as they were for the Aitutaki flights and there were no signs saying you couldn‘t take them so we‘d assumed it was ok.
The plane was bigger than our Aitutaki plane but much smaller than the other planes we’d been on from the UK. We got right to the front, meaning we got a bit more leg room. The flight was two and a half hours in total so was a nice change after the long hauls we‘d done previously.
Upon arriving in Tahiti we were given a flower before we went through immigration. We didn’t get our passport stamped as it’s classed as European. For the first time ever I had someone waiting in the lobby with my name on a sign! Beni was the Swiss owner of the guesthouse called Fare
View across central Papeete
This is next to where the food vans set up. Shame we didn't have our camera with us in the evening as it would have made a great picture. Suisse where we were staying and he quickly whisked us into his car. We realised how much we’d gotten used to Raro’s quiet roads. Tahiti was manic - there were cars everywhere, nobody gave way to anybody and it looked like the most stressful place to drive ever. In the background we could see the beautiful mountainous peaks, but they really were well hidden behind pollution, concrete and cars. Driving into the street around the guesthouse I didn’t think we were going to make it as it was two way traffic with only one lane available and nobody was going to let us through. Beni was obviously used to it as he forced his way in and before we knew it we were driving up a little hill in a quiet side street.
We’d read good reviews on trip advisor for the accomodation and we weren’t disappointed. It was a good value, clean guesthouse with communal kitchen and terrace.
We literally dropped off our luggage and then walked into the city (Papeete) which only took a couple of minutes. It was a harbour town with shops selling normal things at expensive prices. When you visualise ‘Tahiti’ you see
the image of the lagoons and sand, but this isn't what the mainland felt like (maybe further outside Papeete it's nicer but we didn't make it that far). ‘Tahiti’ is the main island and it is built up and the parts we saw weren‘t so pretty. In places it even felt quite rough. And it was hot. Even hotter than Aitutaki.
We wandered around the city for a while and got our bearings and before long realised we were starving. We picked up some brochures from the TIC (Helen W/Jane - if you’re reading this you’ll be pleased to hear they were really helpful in the Tahiti TIC - so far that is the only tourist info place where they have been helpful, we couldn‘t find one in LA and in Raro they seemed to know nothing!) and learnt that from 6pm the whole harbour area gets taken over by mobile food vans selling all different types of food. Not only are the food vans, but they set up tables and chairs around them and have ovens and grills ready to cook proper restaurant quality food but at low prices. That sounded perfect to us so we sat around the harbour waiting for them all to set up so that we could decide which one to go for. Eventually we ended up at a steak stall where we both had fantastic big steaks with garlic butter. Just what we needed after not having had meat on the Cooks for a while. The only thing missing was wine as the vans can’t serve alcohol. Apart from that it was an amazing meal for a bargain £8 each and we both left feeling extremely full and we couldn’t even make it to the crepe stall for pudding like we’d hoped.
In the harbour was a massive boat with three masts. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before but unfortunately we didn’t have a camera on us so decided to take a picture of it tomorrow instead.
One the way back we realised what the guide book meant about Papeete being a bit dodgy. There were few streetlights even though we were walking back along the main road, and there were men hanging about in the shadows. By accident we walked down the wrong side street towards our guesthouse and regretted it when we saw a group of about ten men hanging about by the side of the dark street. We walked past them and didn’t get any hassle but it was unnerving and I was really pleased when we made it to our accommodation.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.235s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.1821s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb